Wasting
by Bubblegum234
Summary: A series of unconnected oneshots tracing Kai and Cinder in different aspects of themselves. The fact that it is love doesn't mean it's rainbows and sunshine.
1. Chapter 1

**I was looking for purely Kaider fics and found precious little. They say when you can't find what you want, make it for yourself. So here I am, bag and baggage, with my fair share of Kaider fics. Just as heads up, these will mainly be heartbreaking, angst-ridden pieces because there aren't nearly enough of those.**

* * *

 _I promise (Modern AU)_

"You will be okay, right?"

"Yeah, don't worry about me."

"Cinder, I'm hardwired to worry about you."

"If you say so."

"Look at me. Cinder no, don't do this."

"You're the one doing things here Kaito."

"This is as much your decision as it is mine."

"Whatever you say, Kai."

"Just don't freeze me out entirely. We've had too much happen between us."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"I'm only doing what's sensible and best for both of us."

Silence

The microwave beeps to draw the boy up from his knees once the mechanic's footsteps have faded. If only leftover love could be reheated like the previous night's pasta.

* * *

"You're being stupid Kai."

"She seems to want it."

"Did she tell you she wants it?"

"She didn't say she doesn't either."

"Did she say anything at all?"

"No."

"Then you're assuming things."

"Carswell, silence is as good as agreement."

"Not with Cinder. You've been living with her for years. You should know this."

"I don't know anything anymore."

"Talk to her about it."

"It's like talking to a wall."

"Have you ever really tried."

"More times than I can remember."

"Try once more."

"She didn't protest when I broke up with her. She helped me pack my things."

"Kai -"

"I know you're her best friend. I know you know the matter, whatever it is. And I know that if you aren't telling me, it's because she told you not to. That's alright. We've spent the majority of our years without knowing each other. How difficult can it be to go back to that?"

Difficult enough that the bartender learns to keep a sleeping bag and spare pillows in the backroom.

* * *

"You're not happy, he's not happy and you've both fallen sick. He was hospitalised for alcohol poisoning. You haven't been eating. And it's just been a fortnight."

"So what do you suggest we do Iko?"

"Get back."

"And break more crockery? Have him accuse me of cheating again?"

"If you just told him that Dimitri is your shrink -"

"Iko please. He has enough to worry about without me adding to it."

"Cinder this is clinical depression. It's his business to know."

"It doesn't matter anymore, he left remember?"

"That's because he thought you weren't happy with him. Just tell him about Dimitri."

"There's no point Iko."

Even the wall clock wished its hands could move the other way.

* * *

"Cinder?"

"Hi."

"It's past midnight."

"I know."

"Do you want me to come over?"

"Yes. Please."

"I'm on my way love."

"Thanks, Scar."

The traffic lights are conspiratorially green and the streets ceremoniously empty.

* * *

"Why did you never tell me Cinder? Why? None of this would have happened then."

He holds her fingers, the only part of her that isn't strapped on to a machine. He convinces himself that, if not for the ventilator, she would answer him. And, burning as he is to press her against each sinew in his body and coax out answers with all the kisses he can, he will turn to ashes if it means the machine will pump a little more air into her lungs; if it will keep her alive a little while longer.

"I promise I'll never let you go Cinder. I promise."

Her suicide note lay, crumpled and tear stained, in his pocket.

* * *

 **Well, that's the first one. Review?**


	2. Chapter 2

**I got the bug of an idea and now everything is just pouring out. Let's hope this lasts a little while longer.**

* * *

 _(Prompt: You're a ghost who's trying to get to the afterlife so I'm helping you out but I fell in love and now I don't want you to go but it's too late)_

* * *

 _Liberation_

Cinder could see ghosts.

She had been a cyborg for as long as she could remember. She had seen specters for about as long. She didn't know the two were related or not; things had always been that way for her and given up questioning why. She wished she knew how to get rid of this ability, it was getting increasingly difficult to maintain a blank face when a ghost was sitting beside her on the bus and doing everything he could to get her attention.

"Look Cinder, I know you can see me," Kai was still looking at her with wide-eyed hope. She took her phone out of her pocket and typed. The message written, she casually placed the device, screen facing upwards, on the seat beside her. A few moments later, he said, "Oh yes of course, how stupid of me. I've grown so used to being invisible that I've quite forgotten they can see you."

After a handful minutes' silence, Kai spoke again, "But Cinder, you will help me out, won't you?" Let out a long, angry breath from her nose, picked up her phone and typed again. This time, she placed it on the seat a little roughly, earning herself a few questioning looks from the other passengers. Kai cleared his throat, duly chastened, and said, "Right. Yes. Of course. At your house. Yes. Most definitely. Not a word till then -" he was cut off by her glare.

* * *

"Cinder I have been dead for over a decade now. All these people around me die and go directly into the afterlife and I'm stuck here right in the middle, neither alive nor entirely dead. You have to help me out of this." Cinder took sipped her tea and continued to stare at the agitated ghost in front of her.

Ghosts had always surprised her, Kai most. Cinema had taught her to believe that a spectre would be translucent or fade a little at the sides. If not that, they would look exactly the way they had when they had died, injuries and all. Yet Kai stood in front of her, as real as he could possibly be with not a single scar, not one physical flaw that she could find. He had died in a well-publicized car accident and she had expected to see at least a few scratches but had been disappointed there.

"You died twelve years ago, Kai. Twelve. In twelve years, you couldn't kiss one person?" Kai blushed; it seemed ghosts could do that. Cinder had never seen any other ghost blush but Kai was far more passionate than the others. Maybe that was why he was held back it wasn't because in his twenty years of life he hadn't kissed anyone. "Besides," she continued, "that's your incomplete wish? That you couldn't kiss anyone?" She found it extremely difficult to believe. Kai was very good looking and had been very rich. There must have been at least one shallow girl around him who would have loved to hold him as a trophy.

Kai shook his head, as though he knew where her thoughts were headed. "Dad put me in an all boys' catholic school," he said, staring at the wall behind her, "For eighteen years, the only women I knew were my mother and the attendants. I made a few friends at the University but Law was a very demanding course and there was only so much time for me to spare." He trailed off. There was no need to complete, Cinder knew he had died before he could finish his education.

"In these twelve years, I have kissed people. So many people. It hasn't worked. It's possibly because they couldn't see me, because they were asleep and they didn't know anyone was kissing them. Maybe, with you, it will be different. You can see me. You will know that you're kissing me. You will respond. That is possibly all that's needed. Please Cinder," he stepped closer, "Please."

Cinder sighed. She shifted to one side of the sofa and patted the empty space beside her, inviting Kai to sit down. He did. She looked at him for a minute, then said, "I hope this works for you Kai." She leant forward, pressed her lips against his, stayed there for a few seconds and moved back. Nothing happened. Kai moved in, urgently kissing her with everything he could muster. Still nothing. He held her as close to her as he physically could and tried again and again till she said he was hurting her.

Nothing.

* * *

Kai was staring despondently out of the window. In the few hours that had passed since they had kissed, he hadn't even looked at her. His eyes, which had been so hopeful that afternoon, were fading like the sunset he was staring at. Cinder's heart reached out to him through the palm she placed on his shoulder. When he turned to look at her, she said, "We don't know how long you will be here. How about we try to enjoy ourselves? At least now, it's both of us. If you go, it'll be lonelier for you." Kai nodded.

"How do you feel about watching a movie?"

His eyes lit up.

She laughed.

* * *

Cinder fell asleep on the sofa, using Kai as her teddy bear. He knew he should carry her to her bed and have her lie there, comfortably, but he loved the feeling of her around him. His parents' marriage had been an arranged alliance and there had been little love between them. Kai too got only a limited amount of physical affection. At the university, his friends had had girlfriends and seeing them together had always given him a little pain in his chest, wishing that he had even a little bit of what they did.

With Cinder hugging him in her sleep, smiling into his shoulder, he felt wanted. He could pretend that they had been together for a few years. Maybe he had chosen a ring and ad planned the best way to ask her to marry him. Maybe they were young and giddy in love. Maybe they had decided names for their children.

But he was an entrapped ghost and she the only one who could get him out this was a purely professional arrangement.

* * *

Kai stayed at her place that entire month. They established a pattern. Kai helped her finish her work and did many of the household chores. The quantity of work didn't increase since there was technically still one person living in the house. However, there were two to complete what was initially done by Cinder herself and they ended up having a lot of time to spare. They filled that time with endless chatter, silent walks in dark, lilting music and frothy laughter. He would sit on the hood of the cars she was fixing, lay beside her in bed and massaged her fingers after dinner, when she was slowly drifting off to sleep.

And when she was fast asleep, he held her close, fiddling with her metallic fingers, trying his best not to let his desire to pass over mar the moment.

* * *

Somewhere in the middle of the second month that Kai and she spent together, Cinder realised that she was falling in love with him.

Kai had hardly known love. His parents had been busy industrialists, pouring the angst of their ill-fitted marriage into their work, and had very little time for what their incompatible alliance had created. In his brief twenty years, he had had so little time to give and receive love but had seen it around himself. It had never reached him, not the way he had wanted it to.

Her heart fluttered and a grin pasted itself on her lips.

It vanished when another thought occurred to her. For a moment. her shoulders sagged. Her breaths came out in shaky gasps, as close to crying as she could get.

She knew she could give him what he desperately wanted. She could give him his liberation.

And she would. When Saturday came, she would. She just wanted one day to enjoy the warmth with him. Then, she would let him go.

* * *

Kai was in love with Cinder. Had been for a while. Every time the words came to his lips, he pushed them back down. He was a ghost, a remnant, a freak of nature. She was real, alive, breathing and the most beautiful woman he'd seen in the thirty-two years he had spent on Earth, both as a ghost and when he had been alive.

But they belonged to different times. There were entire generations between them. And he was a ghost. There was no way she loved him too.

Even then, he made up his mind. On Saturday, he would tell her. He would tell her that passing over no longer mattered. That he wanted to spend all the time he could get right beside her. And when she died, he would ensure she had something she craved that was incomplete so they could stay right beside each other fall all eternity and watch the world grow old.

* * *

Saturday night crept in, achingly slow yet far too soon, much before Cinder was ready. They were sitting on the sofa, little space between them. Kai was playing with her cyborg hand when he said, "So I've been thinking about all this time we've spent together."

Cinder didn't want him to finish. If he did, she would never get around to what she needed to do. He would start talking and distract her. The job would never get done.

She said, "I've been thinking too."

'Kai looked at her, a small smile on his lips, "About?"

"Maybe it's not a kiss that you need to set you free. Maybe a simple kiss won't do it because it's just that; a kiss."

She cradled his face and kissed him before he could say anything; before she could change her mind. She out all her love and heartbreak into it, bringing out a passion that would leave her drained for many months.

Around her, she began feeling him fade. The hand holding hers slowly vanished and Kai could only watch in horror as he slowly dissipated around her while her eyes remained tightly shut to not betray what she felt. He heard her last words to him as though she was the ghost and was haunting him.

"Maybe it's love that you need to really set you free."

* * *

 **Cheesy huh?**

 **Leave a review!**


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